It’s been 20 years since NASA launched its Cassini spacecraft into our solar system, with the mysterious gas giant Saturn as its destination.

Billions of miles later, this intrepid piece of machinery has finally grazed the tops of Saturn’s clouds.

After plunging into a small 1,500-mile gap between Saturn’s innermost ring and the planet itself, Cassini is closer to the planet than ever before. At 11:56 p.m. PDT on April 26, NASA’s Deep Space Network Goldstone Complex in California’s Mojave Desert received the signal that Cassini survived the descent.

It’s the grandest of grand finales. At times, Cassini was speeding up to 77,000 miles per hour relative to Saturn — a speed at which, along the way, an errant particle could have crushed the spacecraft at any moment.

But thanks to top-notch engineering and a stroke of luck, that didn’t happen.

“I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape,” said Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize in a statement...

The University of California hid a stash of $175 million in secret funds while its leaders requested more money from the state, an audit released on Tuesday said.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the audit found that the secret fund ballooned due to UC Office of the President overestimating how much is needed to run the school system that includes 10 campuses in the state. Janet Napolitano, the former Department of Homeland Security chief, is in charge of the school system.

Napolitano denied the audit’s claim. She reportedly said the money was held for any unexpected expenses. Her office also denied the amount in the fund.

“The true amount is $38 million, which is roughly 10 percent of (the office’s) operating and administrative budget, a prudent and reasonable amount for unexpected expenses such as cybersecurity threat response and emerging issues like increased support for undocumented students and efforts to prevent sexual violence and sexual harassment,” her office said in a statement.

Elaine Howle, the state auditor who came up with the report, found that from 2012 to 2016 the office looked to raise more funding by inflating estimates. Howle also said that a top staff member in Napolitano’s office improperly screened confidential surveys that were sent to each campus. Howle said answers that were critical of Napolitano’s office were deleted or changed before being sent to auditors...

Trump’s failure to accomplish little or any of his agenda during his first 100 days is striking. But we should not forget the vast harm he has done in this comparatively short time – especially his degradation of the presidency.

From early in the Republic we have looked at the office of the president as a focal point for the nation’s values. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and his Teddy’s fifth cousin, Franklin, are studied by school children as both exemplars of what it means to be president and of the moral authority of the office.

It is not merely what these men accomplished, but how they did it; not just their policies but their positive effects on the institutions of democratic governance.

True, many of our presidents have fallen short of those ideals. But our disappointments in them largely reflect the high expectations we have of those who hold that office.

But not until Trump has the moral authority of the office disappeared...

A former judge now serving as a school board member in suburban Cincinnati has been charged with felony human trafficking of a minor, felony inducing a minor to engage in sex and a third count of giving alcohol to a minor. The indictment was obtained by River City News publisher Michael Monks, who described Nolan as an, “outspoken and controversial” political figure.

Judge Tim Nolan of California, Kentucky represents District 5 on the Campbell County School Board. Yesterday afternoon he was lead into court wearing handcuffs as the “perp walk” was filmed by the local CBS station.

News anchor Cammy Dierking of WKRC described Judge Nolan as an, “outspoken supporter of the local Tea Party.”

The sex trafficking allegedly occurred in August 2016 — while Judge Nolan was serving as the chair of the Donald Trump campaign in Campbell County, KY. Trump beat Hillary Clinton 59% to 35% in the county while voters also elected Nolan.

In April of 2016, Nolan unsuccessfully attempted to remove Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a delegate to the RNC Convention. Between fighting Senator McConnell in April and the alleged crimes in August, Nolan was appointed by Governor Matt Bevin to the Kentucky Boxing and Wrestling Commission, but was removed only days later when a scandal erupted over a Ku Klux Klan photo posted to Nolan’s Facebook...

"Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience… Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem… people are obedient, all these herdlike people." — Howard Zinn

If truth be known, Americans are no more free than were Germans under Gestapo Germany. “Freedom and Democracy America” is the greatest lie in the world.

Countries sink into tyranny easily. Those born today don’t know the freedom of the past and are unaware of what has been taken away. Some American blacks might think that finally after a long civil rights struggle they have gained freedom. But the civil rights that they gained have been taken away from all of us by the “war on terror.” Today black Americans are gratuitously shot down in the streets by police in ways that are worse than in Jim Crow days.

American women might think that finally they have gained equality, and they have—the equality to be abused by police just like men. As John Whitehead reports, women are forced by police to strip naked, often in public, and have their viginas explored as part of a “drug search.” When I was a young man, society would not have tolerated any such intrusion on a woman. The officer and police chief would have been fired and if not prosecuted for rape, would have been beat into bloody pulps by the enraged men...